I'm Not Spider-Man
by immortalpoet
Summary: I'm just the janitor.
1. Chapter 1

Jimmy hated the joyless smiles of social worker types. Tina, according to her name plaque, had a desk busy with pictures of smiley half toothed children as chubby faced as herself. The cubicle walls were covered in post-its and incomprehensible spread sheet data. He waited in that awkward silence as she typed in his information, or whatever she was doing. The v cut dip in her blouse revealed a little cleavage and despite his lack of attraction or desire, his eyes caught it. As shriveled and unwanted now as the skin on gravy lost too long in the back of the fridge. Had anything joyful ever happened there? She was a younger woman once, right? He tried to picture Tina young, genuine in her happiness, breasts significantly less similar in shape and behavior to a wind sock. But this is what life does...

"Okay, Mr. Miller," she said turning towards him. Oh god, he hoped she hadn't seen his eyes resting there. "We have an opening at General Techtronics as a custodial assistant." She pursed her lips in an apologetic smile.

Jimmy frowned and scratched at his stubbly face. "What does that mean, custodial assistant? What, am I organizing a day planner?" He didn't mean to snark at this woman he knew was only trying to help him and who probably believed on some level in the goodness of her job. Surely she wasn't doing it because this was what she'd dreamed of since she was a child. Her job was proof that hardly anyone gets that, but this would be his third try with their temp agency.

"It's a janitorial position, James." She waited for his inevitable small laugh of disappointment. "With your skill set and the felony in this market, this is a good opportunity. GT regularly promotes from within. Maybe if you do a really good job, they'll keep you on. Obviously I can't guarantee that. They won't do unemployment. There is a lot of paperwork, including non-disclosures, a probationary.."

"A non-disclosure for a janitor position?" Jimmy scrunched his face up, and then thought better of it, figuring he was probably difficult enough to look at as it was.

She waved this off, wagging her lady jowls at him. "It's just a liability thing against industrial espionage. Selling secrets, leaking to the press before official releases, you know. Also,they do drug test."

He bit at his lip nervously, feeling the rough skin where he'd bitten it too much before. "I mean.. what really do they test for?"

She sighed knowingly. "Everything, just a full panel."

He leaned in, whispering conspiratorially. "I mean, I did have one joint, but it was a while ago. That's all. I don't do drugs."

She looked back at the computer screen observing nothing. "How long ago?"

He shifted in his plastic chair trying to keep his leg from going numb. "I want to say at least two weeks ago." Fifteen days ago. He saw it as the ax which hacked at the branches of his anxiety, and he could already feel its tendrils growing back into a stranglehold. Ah, for even one pinner. But now they'll be the stress of a shit job which opposed one of his few forms of successful stress relief. This was probably still preferable and less stressful than the same monthly bills and no job, though.

She stared on into the oblivion of a computer that probably still ran Windows Vista. "That's probably fine. They won't comp the tests. You have to pay for that out of pocket. You'll need to sign and fill these out. The hospital address is on the medical forms." She handed him a daunting stack of paper, yellow highlighted in the appropriate regions, with the two forms of ID he'd given them to photocopy on top.

After a long lobby limbo of redundantly filling out the same information on a hundred different forms and handing them back to the dead eyed woman he saw coming in, Jimmy stepped outside to fish in his pocket for a pack of smokes he promptly remembered no longer existed. The cold bit at his lungs as he sucked it in, offering him solace in the fact that some remnant of those cigarettes would be with him always.

A gruff slurred voice barked from behind him as he felt a hard jut in his back. "DON'T fucking turn around if you want to live. Give me your god damn wallet!"

It wasn't fear that shot through him. It was enough anger to scare him into not acting and getting himself killed. The desire to slap whoever this asshole was in the face was strong. Who would do this to someone already in need? To take his wallet could be as deadly as shooting him anyway in his situation. This was an irrational person. There was no logical reason to shoot him, so wouldn't any illogical reason do no matter what he did? Why not try? He might die, but how great was life? Maybe it was worth it to die to take the chance of not letting people who thought it was okay to do this get away with it. Was that a world worth living in? He hadn't thought so in a long time...

He felt a hard metal jam against his head. "NOW! Motherfucker, you think I'm playing!?"

All that thinking went away. His hand seemed to move of its own accord, and seconds later footsteps indicated that the robber was running away with his goods. Jimmy's stomach turned sour with acid and his hands shook after with a pang that ran through his whole body seeming to sharpen his senses but dull his mind. God, he thought he might throw up. His last twenty dollars. His apartment key. The ID he'd need for the new job. There'd not even be a way to get on the bus back home now. Don't think about it. Don't cry in public. Don't stand here and do that. Just start walking before it gets too cold and cry when you get home, where no one can see you. He dug his hands in his barren pockets and walked hastily. The theme thought of recent days played again in his head: This is what life does to you.


	2. Chapter 2

Jimmy's mattress sat on the floor against the brick outer wall by the window of his small shoe box of an apartment. Though the place itself was the stuff of squalor, he kept it clean and neat and took some pride in that. He even kind of enjoyed the close quarters and sparse decor. It was simple and clean. He found it a comforting change from footing it across the dirty sprawl of Forest Hills, New York. If there had ever been forests here, they were now relegated to pervert filled parks. If he closed the window, the thick walls did a good job of muting out the insane cacophony of the city below, for which he was currently feeling no love. Hidden inside those walls he finally closed his eyes and took a breath and began to let it all hit him at once.

What does one do to self comfort and stave off the stomach drop of despair? Cry? Masturbate? Luckily, before that sad moment when it occurred to Jimmy that he didn't have to choose, his phone rang. It had to be just him, businesses, and pensioners who still had landlines, he thought before snatching it up.

He liked to listen for a moment before speaking in case it was a telemarketer or debt collector. Sometimes they'd hang up on their own if no one spoke. "Jimmy," said a familiar male voice.

He sighed and leaned back against the cool of the brick. "What."

"Jesus, man you sound like you've been gargling hot coals. You need to quit smoking." Laughter cracked on the other end as Jimmy pulled the phone away to avoid its full volume.

He glanced over at his jeans and frowned. "I have quit. Apparently. It's just from walking in the cold. What is it, Jordan? I've had a hell of a day, man. I had to walk all over town getting a replacement ID, cancelling my debit card..."

"Why, what happened?" Oh, did his brother suddenly give a shit? He only seemed to call when he needed something.

Jimmy groaned out a laugh. Not a ha-ha laugh. The kind of defeated sadistic laugh god probably indulged in when he refused to intervene in the Holocaust or anything else. "I got mugged. I thought I was gonna die. And you know what. I'm not sure that I even..." He shook his head, as it all came back to him. The shame. The anger. The humiliation and fear.

"Holy shit. You okay?" Jordan sounded as genuinely concerned as Jimmy could recall hearing him.

"Yeah. Yeah. No. Physically I'm fine." Jimmy rubbed at his face and tried to slow his heart racing with more deep breathing. "I mean I may be getting a job, so..."

"Yeah, I'm kind of in a pickle myself," Jordan chuckled. Here we go. Here it comes.

Jimmy sat up straight in bed. "Yeah? More trouble with Alissa?"

"Shit, have we not talked in that long? No. I broke up with Alissa. I was with this new girl, but you know how it is. Seems like all the hot girls are crazy."

Or maybe you're about as good at relationships as dad was. We shouldn't be with anyone. The Miller's should be sterilized. So should these breeders. What's the point of a hot girl if all she is is hot? To be just desirable enough to breed to make more human units who just breed more units. What were people like Jordan or these girls adding to the world. Dead weight. The idea that people like that were reproducing was probably why this city was filled with useless thief assholes. Jimmy accepted himself as a loser, but at least he wasn't risking bringing more losers into the world. He tried to pay attention and listen to his brother like he wished his brother would listen to him, but honest to god, it was all he could do not to hang up to just tune him out.

"...and since the apartment was in just her name, I now have like a week to leave. It's just a bad scene here. I worry about what it's going to be like when she comes home from work."

Jimmy played bobble head. "Yep. That sounds bad." Jordan was waiting for him to offer. He wasn't going to do that. Make him ask.

"I was thinking of coming back up there for a while. Maybe I can find a job up there too and try to save back up. I just don't know where I'd stay."

Jimmy said nothing and let the silence of the line crackle.

"Do you think I could stay with you for a few weeks? Just until..."

"I have enough to deal with right now," Jimmy shook his head as if Jordan could actually see it. He probably knew.

"You're not gonna have to deal with me. I'll stay out of your hair. I don't take up much space. I can pitch in after I get my first paycheck, and be out of there. Like two months, tops."

"Two months?" Jimmy slapped the concrete floor.

"Tops. Come on, I'm asking for your help. Who visited you in jail?"

"Why would you.. you're only bringing that up now because you want something. That's emotional blackmail. Is that why you did it? With the expectation that I'd be in your debt? Because I don't owe you shit. You chose to come up there."

"Because you were talking about killing yourself in there!" Neither spoke a moment. "I saw you were in a bad way and I tried to help you out. All I'm saying is it'd be nice if you tried to do the same."

Jimmy pulled the phone away and punched repeatedly at his mattress and then hoped Jordan didn't hear it. "See? What is that? Thank you, Jordan, but I've done plenty for you. I'm sorry for your situation. But don't think I don't know where my laptop went at Aunt Cece's."

Jordan sighed. "Is that what we're doing now? We're drudging through history? Don't be an asshole."

"No! I'm saying I don't want you bringing that trouble into my house. I don't need that right now. I'm trying to stay out of trouble."

Jordan's tone changed to sad immediately, speaking slowly. "I'm not trying to cause you trouble, Jimmy."

Jimmy pondered for a moment what would really happen if he just told his brother to go fuck himself and hung up. He'd just call back and keep asking until he got the answer he wanted. If he unplugged his phone, he might miss a call about that job. If he kept it unplugged anyway, Jordan might just show up. There was a hopeless inevitability to it all.

"You have to clean up after yourself." It was a weak concession, and Jimmy already knew he probably wouldn't adhere to it.

-

Shylah had no idea she would be facing the grim reaper today. If she had, she probably wouldn't have bothered with the eyeliner. She probably would've stayed in bed eating donuts and reading Harry Potter for a forth time, which is what she wished she had done anyway, but she had work. She didn't mind the work, really. It was the coworkers. She liked most of her customers and enjoyed the small talk she made with the regulars, but she knew immediately something was wrong with her first customer of the day.

The man's eyes were red and puffy and he had a certain scraggly look about him that made her uncomfortable. She pushed her black bangs from her face and did her best to smile anyway and greet him.

"You're beautiful," the man grinned, leaning over and putting his elbows on the counter.

The childlike earnestness of the sentiment would've been flattering coming from someone else, but her blush of embarrassment still had an aftertaste of unease. She averted her gaze and hoped not to show interest. "Well, thank you. How can I help you today?"

She could feel the man's eyes on her still and it was too long before he spoke again. "Do you think I could ever get a beautiful woman like you?"

Shylah laughed nervously. "You'd have to ask my boyfriend about that. He's a college football player," she lied.

The man managed to smile and look sad at the same time. "All the good ones are taken. I need you..." the man reached into his back pocket, pulling out a gun instead of a wallet and pointing it at her chest. "...to put your hands up."

Somewhere behind her a woman screamed. Someone else bolted for the door, but the world seemed to spin and drop out from beneath her, and Shylah found herself unable to think or move. Her hands slowly went up and she heard herself say, "We have silent alarms."

The man nodded slowly, walking backwards while looking at her until he got to the door, locking it shut. "Thanks for your concern..." He looked to the name plaque at her station. "Shylah Williams. I'm not here for money. I probably won't be leaving here. I'm sorry about all this. But I need you. I couldn't bear it if you said no." He frowned, still staring at her intensely.

Who wears a blue jean jacket? She should've called security immediately. She began to cry silently at the implications. This was the moment she began to wish she hadn't bothered with the eyeliner. What would the papers say? Dead at 19, above her worst family photo and a gruesome description of this man's actions for her parents to read. It was at this moment that she also decided she hated sensationalist journalism.

"You're gonna follow me into this office, and you're gonna listen to me." The man waved the gun about with what she was sure was not appropriate trigger discipline. "That's all you gotta do and you'll be fine. Just follow me and do what I tell you and you will make it through this. Okay, Shylah?"

She didn't want to nod. She didn't want to do anything to indicate consent. She also didn't want to seem like she wasn't acknowledging him. A threat was enough to make complying not consent, right? She could feel her hands trembling, eventually managed to make a noise and a nod. "Please..." No other words came to her.

The man looked contrite and worried. "Shylah. Shylah. I don't want to hurt you. I don't wanna have to hurt anyone. I don't even want to be here!" He practically shouted this last line, his exuberance manic. "Just come with me. Listen to me."

The white haired manager walked up to the man slowly, hands up, speaking in soft but surprisingly firm tones. It looked as if she had removed her golden wedding ring before approaching. "Now, son. I know you got things to say. Why don't you just let us know your demands and we can try to get you some help. Nobody..."

"You shut the fuck up and go sit down!" the man shouted with foaming ferocity, pointing the gun at her instead. This was clearly a man not new to threats.

The woman's round stern face didn't change in expression. She pressed her hands in the air as if to indicate her submission and agreement. "I know you've..."

Three shots cracked through the air. Screams resonated off the wood work and tile. Shylah watched her manager fall dead to the ground in a growing red pool. She hadn't been so bad, Shylah thought. She hadn't actually been so bad. I should have been nicer to her. I should've kissed Alex when I had the chance. I should've stayed home today.

The man was standing over her body shouting so furiously that the words seemed to tear at his throat. "Take that Mary! Take that Mary, yeah! You dead fucking bitch! God damn it..." Then he seemed to be crying and screaming at the same time. "Why didn't you just listen!?"

"Oh my god," Shylah chanted mindlessly, feeling as distant from her own body as her manager now was from hers. She shut up once she heard herself, but the man had already turned his attention back to her.

"So, just come with me. Listen to me," the man said in a polite tone, with a bow, indicating the office across the lobby.

"You're going to rape me," Shylah said, bursting into tears.

"Oh my GOD!" The man spat on the floor shaking his head. "How could you think that of me? I'm automatically a rapist? I told her to go sit down. You heard me tell her!" He grabbed his head and scraped the gun hard across it. "No! I said all you have to do is listen to me. Just listen to what I have to say. Then I will leave this place. I will leave this Earth, Shylah."

Was it a lie to get her to go along? As he waved for her to move from behind the counter, following her with his gaze and gun she walked around to him. Then he threw his arms around her and buried his face in her neck. When he spoke his words were muffled by his own closeness and she shuddered as her skin bristled at the sensation of his body against her own. "This is the scent of beauty. And youth. And innocence. You don't have a boyfriend, do you Shylah? Be honest with me now." He stepped away enough to see her face.

Shylah shook her head. He reached up and wiped at her face. The gentleness of it alarmed her. She had no way of knowing when his mood would switch again. He took her hand and began to walk towards the office. Just as she began to walk she heard another loud pop, and out of reflex jerked her hand free to check herself, but saw no wounds or blood. When she turned back towards the man, she could see a streak of blood staining through his band t-shirt, his mouth agape with as much shock and confusion as her own. She saw the chance and slapped the gun from his hand, kicking it frantically away.

The man collapsed reaching up towards her. "Shylah, I'm.. s-sorry." His words began to gurgle. "It's just like Mary said. A beautiful woman would never listen to me." Then he began to cry again as he grew pale. "Oh my god, she was right." That was the last thing he said.

By the time the police arrived, the only person alive to arrest was the patron who had illegally taken his concealed carry weapon into a bank. Shylah tried to argue that he had saved her, but nothing seemed to change their minds. Instead they kept asking her questions about herself and what she'd seen. Was she in a gang? Had she ever done drugs? Had she known this man? Was she sure. No, no, no. "He kept going on about Mary," she told them.

The officer taking her statement nodded. "Crazy Catholics."


	3. Chapter 3

Jimmy laid in his bed, staring up at nothing, not moving or thinking. He couldn't afford television or internet. He didn't even crave them. Endlessly scrolling through messages and pages was not something he imagined would be enriching. It was like eating and eating and never digesting; all shit and no nutrition. There was a second hand store from which he could get books as cheap as a quarter, and over time he'd amassed a shelf of worthy titles. One of them had been a high school algebra book. Jimmy felt he had never really learned much in high school before he dropped out, but he'd been dabbling in that book here and there when he was up to it, and was proud of his progress. But if you weren't in the state of mind to think, then at least practice not thinking instead of just filling your brain with mush. So, that's what he'd done.

It's something he had started in jail to stop the anxiety attacks. He'd lay there. Whatever thought or feeling would come, he wouldn't push it away or focus on it. Whatever sensation would come, he'd let it wash over him. If his body began to complain of discomfort, he wouldn't move. He'd be aware of it, observe it like the thoughts, like something else that was happening, and he would lay there, aware and empty. Sometimes all this inaction and stillness made him fall asleep, and no matter how purely he embraced oblivion he'd eventually drift back awake anyway. Then he'd lay there some more. Listening to his breathing happen of its own accord. Sometimes if he did this for too long for too many days in a row, he'd begin to feel his will slip away from him. He'd observe that too. He didn't fear depression or unpleasant emotions anymore. He didn't turn from them or shut them down. He let them wash over him. He let himself digest and accept them as part of the facts. Only then could he respond instead of react, breathe instead of panic.

But eventually today he'd have to get up and get ready to go get his brother from the bus station. He wasn't upset about that anymore. He was embracing his hopelessness. A part of him even found its familiarity comforting. This is how it was. Just entropy. Things tend towards disorder and break down over time. Most changes made things worse. It wasn't philosophy. It was physics. This is what life does to you...

He wasn't fully aware of the journey there, but found himself sitting on a green bench across from a young couple that kept kissing each other as the young man grabbed her hips to pull them together. She kept smiling wildly and looking down between kisses. Jimmy sighed as his skin remembered those feelings and his brain reminded him of the reasons they weren't worth it. Desire is the root of suffering. He'd read that somewhere. The kid finally broke his embrace, puffing his chest out and looking at Jimmy. He said something that seemed to require him to jut his chin to emphasize the syllables. Jimmy didn't hear it. He just stared back into the kid's eyes. He saw disgust and anger on both their faces where before there seemed to be such eros, but why? Because they'd been seen in a public shared space? Why was that on him? Why get in another fight. He looked forward staring out into the street, feeling like he'd lost something he didn't fully understand.

The young couple left before Jordan's bus rolled in. He actually wished they'd come back. Memories of his recent mugging began to surface and he started bouncing his legs on his heels, looking about with hyper-vigilance and chewing at his lip. He began to imagine increasingly unlikely scenarios. What if a man came with a knife? He imagined lunging in this way and that and the various ways he would probably get stabbed doing so. What if there were two of them? He couldn't even lunge at one without the other coming up behind him. They'd pin him down and probably fuck him up before ending his life. What if he kicked out? The other could grab his legs and stab at his belly. Whatever defensive move he imagined, he was equally able to imagine how it could go wrong.

Some part of him wanted that fight, at least a "rematch" with his mugger. Well, not the fight. He wanted that part after the fight where you feel power in your limbs. He wanted to know what a victory felt like. Various faces began to take the place of his attackers. Bullies and teachers from school. Assholes who he'd really like to land a punch on. In fantasies, it's too easy to imagine yourself the victory, but he really tried to think it out. His fictional scenarios kept ending with him on the ground.

"Fuckers." He'd pulled himself out of his head by realizing he'd spoken out loud. He looked around to see a few others who'd come to wait, but either they hadn't heard or didn't care. They were all on their cellphones scrolling through Facebook posts they cared so little about that they probably couldn't recall them once they got home. So, why did they bother reading all these things they didn't actually care about?

Jimmy stared out and observed and tried to think nothing. People shifted, distracted themselves from the restlessness of waiting, chatted with strangers to ask questions they already knew the answers to. So uncomfortable with silence. Or maybe other people genuinely liked each other and he was just an asshole. He considered that possibility as well.

The bus eventually rolled up, fashionably late just for good taste. Punctuality is so bourgeoisie. All these run aways, drug addicts, and working class people were above that. They can't be bothered with your social expectations. He spotted Jordan among them, holding a second hand army duffle over his shoulder.

Jordan walked over and gave his little brother a hard wriggling hug. "Ahh! Man, I am ready to crash. I don't know why traveling is exhausting. All you do is sit on ass for hours and you're like, man! I sure am wiped out from all that hardcore sitting!"

Jimmy nodded. "Just the one bag? That's good."

"Pull around, I'll drop it in the trunk." Jordan looked to him, and when Jimmy didn't move it hit him. "Really? Still no car?"

"I can't afford a car," Jimmy shrugged.

Jordan dragged his hands down his face. "Uagh.. Okay, let's call a cab."

"I can't afford a cab. Also, I don't have a cellphone."

Jordan set his bag down and threw his hands up. "Dude." He looked around as people continued to unload and zombie about. "Anyone going towards Westmire?"

A redheaded woman smiled at him. "I can take you." How did he do that?

Even though she was small and seemed harmless, her tattoos made him uneasy. In the car she immediately asked if they minded if she smoked. Jimmy thought for a moment of saying yes he did mind, just to see what would happen. Why ask if you weren't prepared for that answer? He decided being friendly instead might get him a loosey, and he was right. Before they'd arrived, Jordan had managed to strike up enough repertoire to get her phone number "for when he was able to thank her." Why don't you just pull over right here, so he can stuff his balls in you, take your money, and tell everyone on social media how you're crazy when you're done with his shit. Skip to the end. That'd be too much to say to their ride home, right? Yeah.

Jordan was almost asleep on the couch before he'd landed on it. Then he popped back up alert, seemingly energized by having someone new to lie to. "Oh yeah! Did you get the job?"

Jimmy almost laughed, sitting down on the floor by his mattress. "You know, I'd built it all up in my head. They call me down, ask if I have the papers. I give the papers, and they walk me down to the supply room to get window cleaner like I'd been working there a year. That was really it. It was pretty anti-climactic."

Jordan sat up on his elbows. "Window cleaner?"

"I'm a janitor at GT Labs." Jimmy fished around for his ID Card and picked it up to wave it.

Jordan made what Jimmy had referred to since childhood as the Frog Face. "Hey, it's a job."

"Exactly." Jimmy leaned back, glad to be safely back inside these walls.

He could see his brother beginning to look around and take the place in. It was the kind of brick building with minimal wiring external to the solid walls. The outlet was a metal box which ran a lead pipe out, bolted here and there to the wall. All that was plugged into it was a mini-fridge and a small electric range with a cast iron pan on it. Not even a microwave. Jimmy hated microwaved things. Not even a tv. Jimmy hated senseless noise.

"What do you even do here?" Jordan looked around as if he expected an entertainment center to jump out.

Jimmy shook his head. "It's just a place." Good. Jimmy hoped he hated it. He'd do his duty as a brother but not make him so comfortable that he started bringing in scraps to make a long term deadbeat nest.

"It's kind of cubby. I like it. We should put some posters up," Jordan said with a grin, lying back down. Damn it.


	4. Chapter 4

When they told Jimmy he had to finish buffing and waxing the rest of the hall by the end of day and that he shouldn't be expecting any over time, he didn't care for a few reasons. He had always enjoyed the simplicity and honesty of cleaning. Applying effort and watching things come clean as if it were being made new was like magic to him. Cleaning was one of those jobs where you didn't have to wait to see the fruits of your efforts. Most of the complaints he'd heard about this kind of work amounted to "it's icky" or why the person thinks they're too good for it. Luckily, he didn't have much pride to protect. All their declaration amounted to to him was permission to take the time to do it right and an excuse to stay away from his apartment a little longer.

With his mouse brown hair, brown-hazel eyes, tan white skin, there was nothing about Jimmy to particularly stand out. He liked it that way, the idea that he was easily lost in a crowd. His mugging had been the first time he'd been targeted like that since high school. Here, especially as a janitor, he felt safe. No one bothered him except to check his work or tell him what to do next. No one dangerous was going to sneak into a building like this. Of course, if he were to believe the rumors, the dangerous people already ran the place fulfilling DARPA and SHIELD defense contracts.

Except for the signs, every hall had that same concrete and steel brutalist design like a federal building, that intentionally soulless corporate air of a place which declares in clear terms "you are here to work". Not so much as an artificial plant. Fashion seemed reserved for the front publicly viewed spaces. He often worked in the Genetics wing near the offices of Dr. Ashwin Abbott, which was exciting. He'd read about a few of his patents for GT in Wired years ago. There was plenty of impressive looking equipment in that office, but even when he'd been in it to clean, he didn't glean anything about what was going on. Whenever the doc spoke to his assistants or himself it was in some language Jimmy didn't recognize. What notes he could see pinned up here and there might as well have also been in another language. The only thing he did recognize was a tarot card of The Fool pinned to a space by the computers.

Although he didn't understand his words, his tone always seemed soft and patient, sometimes amused. He had dark chocolate skin, thick but neat black hair, and one of those round cherub faces that naturally seemed pleasant. All this led Jimmy to believe he was probably a nice man. He just thought the doc would be taller. He couldn't have been much more than five feet tall on his heels. He imagined them hanging out, him giving that cherub grin to a joke, making some witticism back and sharing a beer. No, he didn't seem like the beer type. That wouldn't happen. Jimmy decided to feel stupid for imagining that and get back to work like the decor suggested.

-

Jordan laughed and fell back on his brothers bed as Eva leaned in to kiss him, her red hair making a canopy enclosing them. Only an hour ago, they'd been meeting up for the first time since she gave them the ride home. He thought it was going well. Before now they'd been keeping it to texts. He only wished he'd done this sooner. She smelled like patchouli and nag champa. She smelled like memories he couldn't quite place, but something about her was comfortable and familiar.

"We could, you know. Right here in my brothers bed." He grinned up at her keeping a playful tone. If she said no, he could always say he was joking. She didn't seem like a no. He could taste her chap-stick.

She grinned back. "Is that as exciting as it gets for you?" A challenge. The city accent wasn't something he was used to yet, but he could forgive it if it meant he got to smell, and taste, and feel more of her. The hour had gone by like ten minutes.

He sat up on his elbows and grabbed at the hip loops in her jeans. "What'd you have in mind?"

"Come work with me." She pushed on his chest with both hands, letting her hands slip over him until they fell back to each side, blanketing him again.

"That's your excitement? Work?" He scoffed.

She ran her fingers through his hair and looked him over, that darting eyed intensity a girl gets when she's searching your face for something without telling you what. "You said you were looking for work. Come work with me. It's easy. I want you with me."

She squealed with a laugh as he rolled her over to be the one pinning, kissing her deeper. She didn't resist. He could feel her hands on the back of his head holding him there, so he pulled away.  
"Where do you work?"

She looked him straight in the eyes now, pushing her hips up against his own. "I'm a runner."

"Then you probably shouldn't smoke," he deadpanned.

She laughed and shoved him playfully. "Jordan's got jokes!"

He looked back with seriousness. "Like drugs?"

She shrugged and looked away. "Does it matter?"

He sat up and took a long breath, looking around Jimmy's apartment. "I like you, but I'm not going to prison for you."

She grinned broad, mouth open. "Aww, do you really like me?"

He shot her a smirking glare. Eva sat up and brushed her hair behind her ear.

"Okay, for real, listen. My employer is really smart about it. Their drivers are like licensed couriers and truck drivers. So, we are literally like just moving packages. The receiver even signs for them. Even if we do get pulled over and something happens, hey. We don't know shit. We're just delivering this package."

He looked her up and down the way she had him a minute ago. She said it as if it were so normal. He'd never been involved with that sort of thing. Well, not that he'd never tried anything, but from what he'd seen on tv, the transporters carried the risk.

"What would happen?"

She rolled her eyes. "I've been doing this for years and nothing has ever happened to me, but a friend of mine who also did it for a while got pulled over once. They gave him a speeding ticket." She shrugged.

"Then why do you need me?" The words Accessory After the Fact shot through his mind.

She looked almost offended at the question. "I don't. I want you there. I always feel safer on the road with someone with me. No one's gonna mess with me with a strong man in the car."

"So, I'd be your strongman." He tried the pseudo-jovial voice back on.

She grabbed his hands to pull him over the top of her again. "Don't be an ass. I'm offering to pay to have you with me because I want you around. You need the money. I want your company. I don't like driving alone at night. Oh my god, do I really have to bribe you into being with me?" She was just as comfortable teasing him back.

He ran his hands just under the bottom of her shirt and kept his eyes on hers. "Your employers aren't going to be upset that you have some stranger in the company car?"

She shook her head. "I can do what I want with my own car, and my own money. I'm just a courier riding with her boyfriend."

He raised an eyebrow at this and smirked. "Boyfriend?" He sat up with a gasp, his tone exaggerated. "I mean, I just met you.."

For the first time in all this intimacy, she showed a blush. "I just meant if anyone asks."

"Right, right." He grinned and let himself be pulled in.

-

No matter how many times Jimmy washed his hands, they still smelled like bleach. He liked the soreness. It felt earned, but the dryness in his hands that made them feel like they might split open, that smell of chemical osmosis, that he didn't so much care for. He was glad to finally sit back in his bed.

"Jordan?" He thought perhaps his brother was in the bathroom. No. His shoes were gone. He'd taken off god knows where. Hopefully to look for his own job.

He pulled the blanket back to get comfortable and caught the gleam of a condom wrapper beneath. "Fuck!" He jumped up and away from it as if it were a spider, and then stared at it in disgust. "God damn. No. No.. I sleep here. Come on." He lamented as if he could make his brother feel his frustration from afar, and then finally made himself go throw it away. When he got back he stripped the sheets down and shook them, glad nothing else fell out.

He flashed back to a memory he'd almost forgotten. Jordan had been about 14 and and he was 11. Most people assumed that Jimmy was the older one. Even then, Jordan somehow had a finer sheen to him. A squarer jaw. A readier smile. Apparently he'd gotten an early start with all that charm. Jimmy had been playing around in his room, lifted up the corner of the carpet, and saw the gold wrapper of the same brand of condom Jordan apparently still used to this day. For all the ladies he'd peruse in the years between, at least he had brand loyalty.

Jimmy, endeavoring to be the good son, took it to his father like a little rat saying "Look what I found!" But his father just sighed and said "I don't want to see that. That's not your business or mine. Go put it back."

Try as he might to make a case against the alleged contraband, Jimmy couldn't get him in trouble. So, when Jordan came back, he said, "Don't worry. Your condom is still under the carpet right there where you hid it."

"What? You little shit!" Jordan threw something at him. What had it been? A book? A shoe?

"Yeah, when I took it to dad he said to put it back." The look on his face had made the scuffle that followed worth it.

Jimmy looked down at the sheetless bed and chuckled despite himself.


	5. Chapter 5

Their truck began to idle in the afternoon jam. Jordan blew out a long puff of air like a steam engine and turned the radio uselessly to sample the freshest new remixes of static.

Eva moved one hand off the wheel to rub his thigh. "I'm sorry if you were expecting like an adventure. This is mostly what my job is, just being in the truck."

Jordan nodded and looked out at the other trapped drivers. "Tell me the truth. You're really just a lonely truck driver who wanted to impress me, aren't you?" He looked back to her with that playful grin.

She play punched at his arm and laughed. "That would be hilarious. You think I'm just spinning you a tale? You know what, maybe it's better if you think that."

He shrugged and leaned his head on her shoulder. "Then let's pretend I believe that." He didn't really care which was true. Sitting next to a girl who likes you for a living was by no means a bad gig. He sprang back up with a thought. "So, do you get paid more if it takes you an extra day or two to get it done?"

She shook her head extra hard, just because she knew he liked watching her hair toss around. "No, officially I get a check payment for how many miles I've driven which is about fifty cents per mile.."

"Fifty cents?" He made his frog face. "That would barely pay for gas!"

She scoffed. "No, that's damn good in the industry, really. I've been paid as low as sixteen. You gotta remember miles per gallon. If you take proper care of your rig, then even full you should get at least 5 miles to the gallon. For smaller deliveries where I can just take my car, it's great.."

"Your rig," Jordan repeated in his best gruff trucker voice. "Listen to you!"

Eva stuck her chest out proudly. "Hey, I've been CDL licensed for four years now, no incidents. This place takes good care of me. I only wish I'd been working for them the whole time. Of course I take good care of my rig. Baluga and I have an understanding.."

Jordan laughed wildly. "Oh my god, you've named your truck. Do you wanna stop over here and get a wide bill hat and a big chug?"

"And a can warmer that says something cheesy about Mondays," she clutched her gut with a belly laugh, not caring if the other drivers heard. "Okay, no. I was saying. I get that much officially plus a cash amount for each delivery unofficially. I really think not even all deliveries have, you know, that little something extra. They just don't want me to know which and I'm fine with that."

He wiped a bit of sweat from his forehead. The air conditioner even on full blast seemed to be working about as effectively as a pug's attempt to breathe after running. "So, if you have your own car, why were you at the bus station?"

"So many questions, Mister Miller. You mind if I check you for a wire?" She reached over with one hand feeling over his abs and up his chest.

He held her hand in place against himself. "Don't start what you can't finish now.."

"Sometimes I like to cheat." She looked over with a silent gasp, realizing how that might sound. "Mileage. Gas. It's like you said. If I'm going two hundred miles upstate, at some point it's cheaper to just take the bus with the packages."

He took her hand in his and began to slide it back down.

"Can I ask you questions? I'm trusting you with all this. You trust me, right?" She looked over at him like a teen asking daddy for the car for the weekend. He loved that look.

"Yeah," he shrugged. Maybe he could make it happen on the way back. He was pretty sure they were elevated enough that even a car next to them couldn't see. Then he briefly wondered how many truckers drove without pants because they knew nobody could tell. Damn. Nullified his own boner.

"What's with that apartment? Barren. Stack of books. It looks like something left over from the war. Like some stabby hoarder lives there."

Jordan stared out. "I'm not even sure Hoarder is a real thing. I think that might be something they made up to gaslight preppers."

Eva blinked confused. "What?"

He could feel himself growing distant inside. He didn't want to deflect with her. "No, I live there with my little brother. I think he needs it. He gets to where he's not in a good way sometimes."

She frowned, sensing the change in tone. "Disability?"

Jordan almost laughed at being unsure how to answer that a moment. "No, no. I think he just never really got his act together, but it's not entirely on him. He comes by it honestly. Our dad just had a temper and he just.. got the worst of it. Sometimes he.." Jordan trailed off.

"Aww. You're looking out for your little brother. That's sweet." She squeezed at his hand.

"Yeah." He grinned back. "Somebody has to."

-

"Jimmy, are you listening to me?" Charles, the head custodian, got frustrated whenever he couldn't get Jimmy's eye contact or a straight answer. Nods didn't count, so Charles waited for an audible "Yes" of confirmation. "You can't just let the mice go. That defeats the entire purpose of the trap. Where do you think they're gonna go? Where do you think they came from?" He waved the metal trap at Jimmy so the mouse would squeak.

Were these questions rhetorical, or was he to now report his best theories on the migratory patterns of wild mice? Wait, do mice migrate? He shrugged and shook his head.

Charles sighed and swiped back his slick black hair from his red meaty face. "They came from outside. If you put them back outside, they're just gonna come back in. It's like we're paying you to put em on a merry-go-round. What did I tell you to do with the mice?"

Jimmy straightened his jump suit and pointed out towards the dumpster. "You said to dispose of them."

Charles chuckled with chagrin. "Yeah, dispose of them. Like, mafia style. See what I'm saying? See that they can't come back in. You know how much lab equipment and shit we got in this building? How about if something gets contaminated with the fucking hantavirus, we take it out of your check?"

He tried not to laugh. That was obviously a meaningless threat. He thought of the absurdity of the custodial staff launching some kind of legal forensic investigation to determine viral origins for the sake of docking someone's pay accordingly. "I understand," he nodded.

"Then take care of it. It's your job to help make sure this place stays clean. These things ain't clean." Charles shoved the cage towards him and stepped back inside muttering something about how he wished he had more men that knew how to follow orders. Jimmy pictured him beaming happily in command of an army of mindless robot janitors, willing and able to conduct forensic investigations as needed, all the circuits to calculate a hantavirus contamination damage report and the proportional ratio of economic recompense required. A glorious Janitorial Empire! Mouse squeaks brought him back to the real world.

He lifted the cage and watched the brown thing wiggle its nose around and dart its black eyes his way. It didn't want to hurt anyone. It might bite in self defense. It might crap disease after eating and seek food even if it wasn't things it was allowed to eat, but it was just trying to survive. It had no malice. Here it was, born and lost in the world among a million others, just trying to find its way like the rest of us. He sighed and stared at it. None of that changed his job.

He set the cage down between a box and the dumpster, obscuring the view of the cameras, and lifted the metal trap doors. He waited a moment and then stomped his foot down all at once with a grinding motion. He knew this would startle the little guy off. It sniffed at his boot a moment and then darted back behind the dumpster. "Fuck you, Charles," he whispered to himself.

-

The Sergeant in command was trying to tell them a dozen things at once. The Deputy wouldn't be coming down for this. They needed to turn the sirens off, they're not trying to advertise. They need to kettle and block off both ends of Ninth before the news vans try to pull in. He was trying to get his troop to stop laughing at whoever rookie blue boots was puking his guts out over the scene in the backyard. The lead investigator was at his throat the moment he stepped on scene. Should we call counter terrorism division? Do you think we've got a vigilante? They liked to act like it was all tense and horrible, but it was clear they'd been thirsty for something like this. The overeager make mistakes. They miss details. All he wanted was to put a lid on it before anyone panicked. It wouldn't be hard to write it off as gang on gang violence. For all they knew, that's what it was.

Some officers were saying, "What, I'm supposed to be sad that a couple dozen gang bangers got swept into the trash where they belong." It was the least ghetto house in a pretty tagged up neighborhood. From outside the brown and tan house, you couldn't tell a thing was wrong if not for the smell. In the backyard however a pile of gang member bodies still glowed with embers from a fire only recently put out. They'd been stacked postmortem like logs in a fireplace. There was only one body out of it. A young man who had bled to death from multiple gunshot wounds crumpled against the side of the house. The blood it seems he'd used to write on the wall was, they determined, most likely not entirely his own. Their main clue came down to just those enigmatic three letters: HMM

What led the Sergeant to think this wasn't simple retaliation was the kid seemed to be one of their own and they'd encountered those same letters at two other similar scenes in the last two weeks. If someone was sending a message, what was it? Who was it for?


	6. Chapter 6

Jordan could smell the hot grease of fresh pizza from outside. He swung the door open to see Jimmy eating two slices folded on each other like a sandwich of gluttony and burst out laughing as he clicked the door behind himself. "What is this? You never eat out!"

Jimmy nodded and waited to swallow to talk, making sure he didn't get anything on his work jumpsuit. "I'm celebrating. Help yourself!"

There was a stack of three boxes at the foot of his bed. Jordan lifted the lid of each in turn. "No pepperoni?"

Jimmy scowled at the word and shook his head, wiping his face with a napkin. "Do you know how much sodium nitrate is in that? Hey, I've hardly seen you in a week." Not that he was complaining, though he kept that last thought to himself. So long as him being elsewhere didn't mean he was just causing that trouble somewhere else.

Jordan took a few for himself and smirked. "I'm still working with Eva. Do you think anything about pizza is good for you? What's it matter?" He waited for Jimmy's usual choices-matter diatribe, but it never came. "What are we celebrating?"

Jimmy set down his pizza sandwich and grinned. "I sort of got promoted today."

Jordan leaned back wide eyed and took his hat off, wiped his mouth with the pizza crust and ate it. "Wow. Already?"

Jimmy wagged his hand back and forth. "Sort of. I'm still in waste disposal. Sort of."

His brother laughed and threw his hands up. "You're not telling me anything here, man."

He looked up thinking back. "Well okay. Charles and Aiden and I were on break with.."

"I don't know who that is." Jordan reloaded his plate. Free food is best food, nitrates or not.

Jimmy waved this off. "Doesn't matter. Aiden likes to talk. I let him talk. He was talking about how the company is going through re-branding debating whether or not to call itself OsCorp now. They feel GT might be too vague and not snazzy enough, whatever. I don't care for it. Anyway, they have us working longer hours, especially his crew revving up for some big project. I don't know what it is. Even if I could, confidentiality.."

"Yeah, yeah.." Jordan said rolling his hand and wanting him to get to the meat of the story.

Jimmy laughed at the thought of drawing it out just to tease him. "So anyway, Aiden is basically talking shit about the company saying they're inhumane, greedy, and so on.." Jimmy had to stop to laugh and shake his head covering his mouth a moment. "The boss's kid.. Oh man. This guy, all silk with his hair slicked back like a wet rat shoves Aiden and says his father built this company up from the ground and he should be grateful to even have a job, and then says you know what on second thought, you DON'T have a job, if that's how you feel. I wanted to cut in because he was really tearing in to Aiden but Charles says when Harry Osborn is exploding you just stay out of the blast radius. He treats that place like his own personal.."

Jordan nodded proudly. "Right. You have to look out for number one." He put his fist out for a bump, but Jimmy just looked away from it shame faced.

"No, if I could've stopped it, I would've. Aiden's not a bad guy. He's just got a mouth." He frowned and looked down before popping back on course. "Anyway! Charles turns to me and says that's that. They need someone for bio-waste. So, I spent the day watching these mandatory OSHA compliance videos that don't even.."

Jordan shot his hands up. "So, wait. Aren't you already the guy who scrubs floors and cleans the shitters at this point? What is that, bio-waste? Like.." Jordan scrunched his face up, imagining all sorts of fluids.

Jimmy blew out a slow raspberry and laughed nervously. "Should I really say? I signed for confidentiality. It could be bad press."

Jordan looked around. "Dude. Who am I gonna tell? Do you think I'm secretly working for the Daily Bugle?"

Jimmy distracted himself getting another slice. "It means I'm the guy who takes the dead test animals to the incinerator."

Jordan groaned on his behalf and nodded. "Well.."

Jimmy nodded. "It's a pay raise. Also, they're already euthanized. It's humane." He had to wonder about that last bit, but it's what he wanted to believe. Perhaps they were working on disease cures. He needed to think it was something really worth it. He didn't like thinking about it for too long. "Anyway, how's delivery work with Eva?"

"Couriering," Jordan said holding out his pinky to indicate how much fancier it was than mere delivery. Something new in the apartment caught the corner of his eye. He turned to see a tinted glass top box with dials. "What's this?"

Jimmy lit up and reached over to flip the top open. "Oh! You know how you keep saying you hate coming home to such silence, that it gets dull here. Well.." He raised the needle of a record player, returning it to its resting stand. "I got a record table! It's pretty old, but it still works. I'm gonna get vinyls for it over time, and.."

Jordan made a long 'ugh' face. "Man, I meant like a flat screen in here. This thing looks like I should wind it up before it plays. I mean.."

Jimmy's smile dropped. "No, no. This is better. There's no mindless chatter on this. Look." He lunged himself up to walk over to the counter and lifted a record. "Ray Lynch: Deep Breakfast. Remember this? Dad would put it on when he came home from work too tired to tell us bed time stories." He did his best tired dad voice, "Here. Listen. Make up your own stories. You can imagine worlds to this. And I did.."

Jordan looked down and dropped his pizza, chewed on his lip. "I just think you and I might remember that time a little differently."

"No, I know," Jimmy's mouth smiled but his eyes were blank. "I just mean, it wasn't all bad."

Jordan could feel his breathing and heart rate picking up. "Floyd. We should get some Pink Floyd, some Doors albums. Blaze a few in here. Now, that would be like better days."

Jimmy shook his head and set the record down. "I can't. My job drug tests. I'm really getting out of it. I'm probably not even going to smoke anymore. I need to recoup the savings I lost job hunting. I can't believe you just stumbled in and fell on a job like that."

Jordan leaned on one elbow and weighed whether or not he should say the next thing or avoid a possible lecture. "She wants me to move in with her."

Jimmy plopped back down on his mattress. "Eva?"

"Nah, this other bitch I got on the side." When his brother just nodded and waited instead of acting surprised he laughed. "Of course Eva."

Jimmy shook his head, unzipped his jumpsuit and wrapped the sleeves around his waist. "I don't know. That's way quick."

He nodded, nodded, nodded. "It is, yeah. But this girl, bro. She could suck a basketball through the eye of a needle, just.." He emulated fellatio until he was sure his brother was properly disgusted and laughed. "No, you don't want me here in your hair."

Jimmy shrugged. "I don't really mind." That wasn't entirely true, but it was preferable. Here, he could keep an eye on him. "Better you stay here another month then you take off and things fall through with her for whatever reason and you find yourself stuck."

"Pffft," Jordan flopped an arm at him. "If that happens, I can just come back here, right?"

He gave him a glare. "So, I'm supposed to be your fall back at will?" He shook his head hoping to erase that last sentence and try again. "I'd just rather you were sure before you got yourself in a potentially bad situation."

Jordan punched at his arm and grinned. Classic Jimmy. He couldn't help but remember the two of them in the principle's office together after Jimmy beat the shit out of two jock types who'd decided to threaten his brother. They were the only ones allowed to threaten each other, after all. He didn't get out of it without his own bruises, but these were two kids almost twice his size. They never saw it coming. You couldn't keep Jimmy down. He was a whirl wind. When it came time to face the consequences, Jordan let himself take the blame. What was he going to say, my little brother was just standing up for me again? He does this at home when dad gets violent too? No. Just looking out for my little brother. That's when that story started. It was a better story.

-

Detective Alister had had a very long night. He pulled up a chair at the Sergeant's desk only after he was good and sure that everyone was busy. He wished he had better news.

"I went to the Fusion Center. We pulled up everything we could. The dead suspect on scene was Trey Wilks, part of the Diablos Gang. Just some kid from what we can tell. He'd deleted everything off his phone but..", Alister shrugged, "it was a standard flip phone. Between CarrierIQ and ICREACH, we got everything. It actually wasn't much at all. No activity for a month. We look into it and sure enough, he'd been missing for almost a month before he showed up the night of the event. The only messages we found were from him calling even more people over like it was some kind of big reunion that night."

The Sergeant bristled and stroked a hand back through his cropped greying hair. "To get as many there as he could."

Alister gave a curt nod. "That's what we think."

"So, it was a planned hit. He got flipped by The Rivals. I mean, it's their name. They're enemies with everyone."

The detective huffed out a breath. "That was the initial theory, that this was some turf war thing, but they're getting hit the same way. Even the Kingpin and other mob bosses. We brought him in for questioning, but he's not a rat and he's not stupid. Nobody's talking, and if this is meta-human activity, it's nobody we know. Neither side wants this. There are leaders on both sides talking truce for the first time in years. People are scared."

The Sergeant sighed and glanced out at the bustling outside his office. How long could they keep the press off it? "Then, what? What's your theory?"

Alister set down a folder of pictures, and opened it to splay them out across the desk. Statues smeared with blood, or with red wings appended. "We kept finding this on scene, those three letters, right? Well, there's also been a lot of defacing, all of these statues. Of the Holy Mother Mary. We think this is somebody new. We think someone is... consolidating."


	7. Chapter 7

On those nights when Jimmy would lie awake restless and unable to think of nothing, he thought of everything. He seemed to remember everything he'd ever done wrong all at once. From the time he mispronounced something in second grade and the entire class laughed to the fumbling moment he failed to find his first girlfriend's clitoris. The fact that he had ever dated such a horrible broken girl. The fact that he hadn't been nicer to her. The fact that he had cared too much about being nice and probably should've told her what he really thought when she got bitchy. The fact that he hadn't either just decided to be faithful to this or that girl or leave them and admit that no one was really going to make him feel wanted either way.

He would stare up and try to think of it all and bring himself to cry, hoping it might all leak out his face like a liquid pressure valve and he'd feel better after, but tears rarely ever came because it wasn't really sadness he was feeling. When they did, they didn't seem to actually make anything better. Maybe because feeling and thinking about things wasn't really enough. He had to do something. He thought of all the things he'd failed to do with his life despite the fact that his life could well be half over now, and he burned with a sense that he ought to be doing something more, though whatever that was he had no fucking idea. He spent his days reading for the sake of his mind, exercising for the sake of his body, or working for the sake of not fighting other homeless people over dumpsters. It was New York, after all. It was competitive everywhere. He should be glad to be working. He should be happier now. Which left him in the superfluous position of feeling bad about feeling bad.

With his brother gone that night as he was beginning to be more and more, Jimmy didn't want to stay there in the silence left to his own devices with his mind until it spun him somewhere dangerous again. He didn't want to pace around the city aimlessly until he got mugged again either. He decided to pop in to work late on the pretense of having forgotten something. It would be well lit. There would be people, the amenities of the break room. He could bring a book. It wasn't hard to talk himself into.

The cab ride over was silent but for the sound of the road and those leaning glances night cabbies give you to make sure you're not up to something funny back there. He was glad to arrive at GT. He even waved to the receptionist who never spoke to him. Was she busy or did she look away on purpose? The cabby suspicious and now her disturbed. Maybe that was just the effect he had on people. He felt like he was missing some part of himself which others possessed and he did not, like they all heard and understood some signal that he just did not receive, and when they looked at him they could tell that something was missing and something was wrong with him. Maybe that was all in his head. He just needed to be somewhere well lit where he could feel the bustle of people nearby in case.. in case what? He could feel the sweat on his palm when he slid his ID card through the reader. He could feel his chest tightening with dread, but of what he didn't know. What he really needed was a joint.

He sat in the break room and settled for a hot tea. He looked around for something to count, bouncing his knee. He looked at the white tiles on the floor. One. Two. Three. Four. It was probably stupid, but if he did it steadily and stopped paying attention to anything else, it gave him a sense of constancy and helped him feel grounded. Whatever kind of peach white leaf berry blend atrocity it was, he didn't finish it. "Ugh," he said as he chucked it. We'd been boiling various leaves in water for thousands of years and it only took this company one product to make him question the wisdom of it all.

Just as he was sitting back down and preparing to count again, Dr. Abbot of all people wandered in. Jimmy suddenly realized he'd be seen sitting at an empty table staring at a wall like a weirdo, but the doc never looked up from whatever tablet device he was holding. "Oh, shit!" Dr. Abbot said.

Jimmy was so surprised at this that he heard himself speak before realizing he was responding out loud. "So, he does speak English."

The doc whipped his head around, clearly just noticing there was someone else in the room. "Oh!" He laughed at himself and shook his head, covering his mouth with embarrassment. "Yes. I'm sorry."

He put his hands up. "No, no. I was just.." Noticing that of all the times I've listened over your shoulder these are your first words in my language? Jimmy floundered for a natural finish to that sentence.

"Sudoku," Dr. Abbot declared, turning the pad to show him a game he was on. "When I take a break from a problem, I like to focus on something simpler. I still challenge myself to get the whole board with no mistakes. I did not succeed." His words seemed soft and sharp at the same time, intentional. The accent was noticeable, but his enunciation was clear.

"Hah. Yeah. I.. do a similar thing." Jimmy nodded, and then remembered he was just sitting there. He reached to pull his book out of his jump suit and wave it back. "Reading. I was going to read."

That cherub smile came over Dr. Abbot's face. "The Letters of Seneca. Not a read you see very often. It would fit nicely alongside Rand or Nietzsche in any Philosophy 101." He pointed at the book. "What uh- what led you to his work?"

Jimmy shrugged. "I got it for like a quarter. So.."

When Dr. Abbot laughed, he could tell he wasn't laughing at him. It was the same way he seemed to be tickled a little bit by most everything. "Yes. Very frugal. I've- Oh! Since you're here, will you come help me? I know you're not lab crew. They've gone home hours ago. I just need your help moving something. I'm.." The doc moved his hands to indicate his own smaller stature with an endearing what-are-you-gonna-do shrug.

Jimmy stood up all at once. "Yeah!"

"Unless you're.."

"Nope." He tucked his book away.

"A-heh," the doc nodded and led the way.

Jimmy was shown to a large crate he first had to crank trolley over and then crowbar open. It really was more than Dr. Abbot could've done. The thing was easily ten feet high. He helped pull off layers of foam wrapping to reveal a round machine with a compartment into it that reminded him of a tiny MRI. The unwrapping felt like Christmas, but now he was confused. "What am I looking at here?"

Dr. Abbot just gazed at it a while with glistening eyes. "It's my own design. Another one of my brain babies!" He touched his hands to the eggshell colored surface. "Though to be fair, I have stood on the shoulders of giants. Without the revelations of Dr. Banner.."

"But what is it?" Jimmy just stared seeing no indications.

The doc crossed his arms. "Well, you know... Without disclosing too much of my secret recipe, I can say that this thing will replace transgene biolistics as we know it with a more efficient and precise process."

Now he just felt dumber. "...but what is it?"

Dr. Abbot gave him a friendly pat on the back. "Thank you for your help..." He looked to the patch on his jumpsuit. "Jimmy. My crew could have helped me in the morning, but I'd prefer to get an early start. Maybe it's better that there are some things you don't know. Pride yourself on being The Fool."

Jimmy's mouth opened, but he could say nothing. He hadn't been expecting an insult. He felt stupid for being surprised.

The doc lifted his hands. "Oh! No. It's.. sorry.. I should have explained." He walked over to the peg board on the wall and tapped the Fool tarot card Jimmy had noticed earlier. "As a scientist, I encourage all of my help to emulate The Fool."

He shook his head. "What?"

"Yes! Come. Come." Dr. Abbot seemed to smile with excitement and wouldn't stop waving him over until he walked to his side. "Ignorance, Jimmy, is the first step to knowledge. Ignorance is not stupidity. Ignorance is not knowing, and not knowing is the journey. To know and admit that you do not know. 'I don't know' is most often the honest answer. The pretense of knowledge. Presumption. Conclusion instead of continued investigation. Nothing so impedes knowledge. Always reevaluate. Always question. Especially your own conclusions. In fact, make no conclusions. Theorize. Test. Never conclude. To conclude learning and rethinking is the same as dying. Don't 'know' things. Think. Do you understand?"

Jimmy nodded and grinned. He couldn't help but feel like he was getting a speech from an overzealous high school teacher, but he seemed to say it with such earnest and wonder that he didn't want to stop him.

"See the white rose?" The doc pointed. "Innocence. One foot over the precipice. Unaware. Not stupidity. Ignorance."

Jimmy also pointed. "Yeah, but he looks like he's about to walk off a cliff."

The doc turned and looked at him with that same intensity he'd only read about before now. "Yes, Jimmy. He's about to find out, isn't he? Those who walk the trodden path only go where has been gone before. I am ready to leap from the precipice. That too is science. I would jump. If it were the right cliff." He nudged his finger in to Jimmy's chest softly to emphasize the syllables. "Pride yourself on being The Fool."

Jimmy nodded breathing that in, letting it roll around in his noggin before responding. "There are things we know, though. People say all the time, 'It's a scientific fact'."

"Scientific fact is an utter contradiction in terms! I despise the phrase!" If Jimmy hadn't been looking at his smile, the volume and tone might have made him think Dr. Abbot was angry. There was a kind of fury in him, but it wasn't anger. Jimmy would recognize anger. This was something else, more light than heat. "It is not the job of science to anoint Soothsayers and declare unquestionable facts. It is the job of science to question and test. I have had to wrench my work from the hands of dogmatic thinking at every turn in the States because of those who think they cannot be questioned! Scientific fact..."

Jimmy smiled toothy and nervous. "I'm sorry."

Dr. Abbot grabbed his arms warmly. "No. No. Jimmy. It's not just you! You're right! Everyone says that. The people want to believe there is certainty and we are the priests who can convey to them the holy and unwavering word of Science. It is a lie they choose because they find comfort in it. But science is not a religion. There are no tenets of faith." He laughed and rubbed the back of his head, looking up and remembering. "I was at a conference last year in which it was seriously argued that the universal constant of gravity does not exist and that matter clumps because determinate things have a lower potentiality. And next year there will be another theory, another series of graduate thesis piles to confound and question all our work, and god bless them for it! That is their job! Not to dictate to us what to believe, but to question everything we've done. We cannot even have consensus on a model for the universe at the core of its operating principles or the working of atomic particles. If any man says to you.. Scientific Fact.. Scientific Consensus.. one of two things is the case. Either that man is bought by special interests who want you to think that THEIR conclusion of YOUR thinking is the only way to think. Or they are lying not to you, but themselves."

"I.. wow, okay.." Jimmy nodded, unsure what to say.

"Oh my god, I've assaulted you.." Dr. Abbot put his hand out towards him apologetically.

Jimmy laughed, genuinely this time. "Not at all. I'm just processing."

The doc laughed back. "I'm just as bad. I'm the Old Fool, I suppose, codgering on."

Jimmy sighed out a puff of breath. "No, don't. Don't dismiss it. That was.. beautiful. But uh..."

Dr. Abbot crossed his arms looking at him in mock challenge. "Go ahead."

He snickered as he said this. It had to be such a predictable response. "So, you're certain then, that there are no certainties?"

The doc repressed an eye roll through a long breath in through pursed lips. "What I can say is this. It is better and more honest to say 'I think' than 'I know.' Because we are not yet done discovering, and I hope we never are. You get up in the morning and you operate on the presumption that the sun will be there and that things that go up will come down. This is reasonable. I understand. But you don't really say, I know it will be this way forever no matter what. If you are wise you say, I will operate according to what I know now until newer more current and convincing information comes along. And when it does, that's when you decide either to adapt or to hold on to your beliefs."

Jimmy nodded, nodded, smirking and biting his lip. "And that's why I should be Foolish."

"Ahhh, you're teasing me now!" Dr. Abbot wagged his finger.

Jimmy snickered into his hand. "Only a little."

Dr. Abbot rolled his shoulders and stood up straight, as if physically needing to stand his ground on the matter. "Yes. Absolutely. Be The Fool."

Jimmy walked backwards as he spoke, making his retreat on that note. "Really, Dr. Abbot? You seem so... certain.."

"Hah!" He pointed at Jimmy. "Then prove me wrong. I love being wrong. It's when I get to learn!"

He waved to him on the way out.

"Jimmy!", the doc called out one last time, "Let me know what you think of that book. I've always thought Seneca belonged on t-shirts and bumper stickers, but don't let me tell you. Tell me what YOU think."


	8. Chapter 8

Jordan once searched for the same picture for three days. He remembered sorting through hours of porn he never wanted to see to find that girl with the strawberry rainbow socks. Galleries of thumbs all because he never knew her name. He had seen it the first time drunk one night, but managed to recall she had that perfect look on her face. That look that both demanded and begged, that said "I could never hurt you," all pigtails and blush. That balance of features that said she'd do anything for you, even pretend she'd never done it before. She was just between innocent and naughty, curvaceous and petite, gentle and brash. He'd searched through pages and categories and tags. He'd saved so many similar pictures he knew he'd never look at again in folders hidden from no one in particular. They didn't have that extra something he couldn't put his finger on. So, he kept looking until he came across the right archive of threads again. But when he finally found it, it was just a girl. He could see the crow's feet wrinkles in the corner of her smiling eyes. Close scrutiny showed him all the imperfections in her skin, and somehow he felt betrayed.

Today Eva wore a t-shirt of Samuel Adams red eyed, advising all to "Light bong fires in the hearts of men". Jordan thought she shouldn't wear anything that might draw negative attention or give a cop an excuse. Eva thought that if a cop wanted an excuse, he was going to create one and Jordan was being paranoid. He'd loved her edgy assertive nature at one point. Now he was discovering the times when it led to needless disagreements. The initial thrill of a new romantic possibility, the million ways you imagine making love to that person, the excitement and anticipation; all of that magic seems to somehow dispel once you've actually seen the way their stomach flaps about like angry jello during sex. She snored. She chewed loudly. She never cleaned the dishes right at her place. Expectation is idyllic. It's that perfect picture of a cheese burger in the drive-thru menu. Reality is the minimum wage mash you drive away with.

He knew this cycle and he didn't want to do it. He didn't want to become passive aggressive over things that didn't matter, or sabotage until she retaliated, and then blame her retaliation for the inevitable break up, but here he was sitting next to her in the truck brooding in silence like a steeping kettle. He'd been feeling angry at himself that he'd settled for a girl that looked like she did after the ones he'd dated. Remember Liv? Her tits had been firmer. Smaller, but firmer. Heather had a better sense of humor, and she was neat. She was anal retentive, but at least she was neat. Secretly he was annoyed with Eva for being so close all the time that he could never check what his exes were up to these days or browse through the pictures of the girls on his friends list.

When he was still in elementary, Jordan had come to school one day to find the teacher crying quietly and waiting for the whole class to arrive. She told them all that Alex, Jordan's best friend at the time, had been struck and killed the day before by a drunk driver. Everyone was in shock. The class spent the day making cards for Alex's family. When it came time soon after to get ready for the funeral, it wasn't real enough to Jordan for him to feel sad. He wouldn't realize what it really meant to never see Alex again for months. What he did remember feeling was excited. He'd never been to a funeral before, and now all of a sudden in the middle of the monotony of a school year, there was this new and mysterious and important event. There was going to be food after and everyone was dressing up. It was his first time in a tux. Their dad had chastised him for all the smiling and reminded him how serious it was, but all he could feel was the excitement. Sometimes something different was better even if it was worse.

He hadn't thought about Alex in years. Maybe it was the radio songs that he hadn't heard in almost as long. Nah, he wasn't as in to nostalgia as Jimmy. What had really got him thinking about it was, what if Alex had changed his usual route home that day? Maybe he'd still be alive. Maybe it's sameness that kills us. He didn't know what unicorn he'd been chasing that led him here, but he knew that it was gone now, and what remained was just a girl.

He looked over at her surprised to see her already staring back. She bit her lip with a nervous smile. "We should talk." Jesus fuck, don't be pregnant.

"Yeah," he nodded, and she looked back to the road and took a breath.

"I think we should break up." Her voice was firm but apologetic, her hands gripping the wheel until her knuckles were white.

Jordan sat up like someone had put a snake in his shirt. "Are you serious?" This was not how it went. He was not the one who got dumped! She must have picked up on his signals and decided to preempt him, which was like the relationship equivalent of saying they can't fire you because you quit.

She smiled through clenched teeth. "I know it's sudden, but I've been thinking about it a lot. I feel like I've been really pushing and like maybe I rushed things."

He slapped his knee. "You do this now? How many hours do we have left on the road today? Why do this now?"

She glared at him side eyed as much as one can taking a corner in a sixteen wheeler. "Oh, what? Are you scared I'm going to make it more awkward than you fucking around on your phone for another hour and not saying a word to me?" She moved her fiery bangs behind her ear and breathed herself to composure. "Jordan. I've just.. I've thought it all out. We just met and I was already talking about moving in together. I do this. I get scared and I try to lock it down and then they feel trapped and nobody is happy."

"I'm... happy." Why did he even say that?

She scoffed and glanced his way. "I've really thought about it. Let's say you are. Let's say it all goes good.."

"Well."

She scrunched her forehead and paused. "Well, what?"

"...Never mind."

"Anyway, let's say it all goes great. Then what? We move in together, settle down, get married? Have kids? I can't have fucking kids. I am not pushing out a baby. I have to be on the road, and then where am I going to put the kid when we have it, in the ice box with our fucking sandwiches?" Her nervous laughter made him feel it was okay to laugh. "No," she shook her head. "I just mean, I'm not even sure I believe in all that. This is not the fifties. Nobody even stays married. Why even do it? The whole thing is a sham. But here we are, going down this road to nowhere anyway. It all just feels so..." She stared ahead blankly, lost in her own head somewhere.

"...Inevitable," he nodded.

"Yeah, exactly! Like, why do it?"

He patted her shoulder reassuringly. "I definitely... was not thinking about marriage and babies and picket fences. It is a sham. My parents were divorced. Yours are divorced. People say for better or for worse forever and all that before they really have any idea what it means. You can't really know that. You can't know how you're going to feel about someone forever."

Her voice softened. "I like you. I'm not saying I want to leave you."

He felt like a dyslexic air traffic controller. "What? You said we should break up."

She nodded vigorously. "Right. We should break up. We should not do the thing, the predictable inevitable horrible thing where we get married and compromise and give up to stay together forever no matter what, and get bitter about it and take it out on each other and hate each other until you eventually leave me for this younger girl you found online and we have to get fucking lawyers and traumatize the kids and fight over who gets to keep the flat screen."

"Wow. You have really thought about this.."

She burst into a spurt of laughter. "I'm sorry. I just mean, it's all so cliche. I think people only rationalize it as a good deal because it's this romanticized thing with the person they're sexually attracted to. I mean, otherwise, where are all the straight guys marrying their gay friends? That's what marriage is. It's this institution of like.. normalizing that nobody else gets to fuck this person, but without feeling like you have to fight other people off or do more to keep them for yourself because you staked your claim."

"Or you've gotten old and you're desperate and scared of doing it all alone and nobody noticing when you die," he laughed. "But yeah, either way, you're right. It's basically because you compromise and settle."

"Right! But we're adults. You know. I don't think we have to do that. I don't think we have to have this big put on just because it's what people do. I like you. Let's not ruin it. I don't want to do that. Let's break break up. Let's fuck each other. Let's see where it goes."

He shook his head with a grin. "Wait, what? Are you serious?" This is it. He was now almost living The Dream.

She shrugged. "Why not? I don't think we have to feel ashamed for that."

When she pulled off at the next rest stop to prove her sincerity, he didn't feel worried or hurt. He just felt excited again, at least for now.

-

Jimmy had been taking to reading in the break room around the same time every night in the hopes of running in to Dr. Abbot again. He'd even been bringing a better black tea for himself to avoid that off-brand schlock. It had only taken about a week for it to happen. Jimmy once again saw him holding his pad as he entered.

"Ah, hello!," the doctor announced in his friendly way. Jimmy was always dubious of smiles. You can trust a man who scowls. He almost always means it, but people fake a smile all the time. They give you pleasantries to be polite and end up doing you the insult of presuming your ignorance instead, but when Dr. Abbot smiled he believed it because as corny as it seemed to be, that's really how he was. He was the kind of person to quote Carl Sagan and say "Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known." He'd seen that curiosity and passion and shining faced idealism up close. It was embarrassingly real. He couldn't be that kind of person that seemed to be unscathed in hope and wonder about the world, but he also couldn't help being drawn to it. "How are you liking the book so far?"

"Jimmy," he smiled back.

The doc sat himself down and let his pad rest to fold and give his full attention. "Yes, I know. I remember," he tapped his noggin. "Seneca. What do you think?"

Jimmy sat his book down and chuckled, shifting and feeling awkward under such square attention. "Well, I'd always thought of the expressionless old wooden Indians when I thought of Stoics, you know. I thought it meant to be emotionless or uncaring, but I don't think that's it. He's saying.. Don't run from sadness. Don't avoid it. It's a part of life too. I definitely get that. There's lots of themes of balance."

Dr. Abbot nodded coaxingly. "Yeees. You understand the material. I suspected you would. But my question had been, what are your thoughts on what he has to say?"

He stretched back, putting his hands behind his head, and looked down. "To be honest, Dr. Abbot, I didn't do so well in school. I had a lot of trouble. I did eventually get my GED, but I'm no scholar."

The smile dropped from the doc's face and he leaned back looking Jimmy over with a scrutiny Jimmy didn't fully comprehend. He was silent for so long that Jimmy began to fear he may stand up and leave altogether, but then he spoke, and it was clear he'd been organizing his thoughts. "My first major was in programming long before I got into the field of biology and genetics or neurology. I wanted to make sure that I understood logic and philosophy. I wanted to, perhaps at least partially because of my upbringing, avoid hubris. You know my thing about staying The Fool." Jimmy nodded and listened. It was clear from his tone there was more. "Boolean logic didn't translate well to the organic world. I've since spent years studying the brain, the developmental factors of consciousness and its impediments." He leaned forward now, whispering in conspiratorial tones. "My god, if I could tell you the things we are working on now! With the tools we have now. If Terence McKenna were here, it would blow his mind. Do you know what intelligence really is, Jimmy?"

He just shook his head and listened.

"No," Dr. Abbot looked at the table and laughed at himself. "No, I don't either." He smiled. "It's an emergent property. When the conditions are right, the phenomenon arises." He motioned a poof with his hands. "Ants can be born with more organizational comprehension than elephants. Some children at five can intuit more about physics than I have learned in my years of study, and everyone has something to teach. All we can say is what it's not. It's not the physical mass of the brain or the stage of development of the subject, and definitely," he leaned forward pointing at Jimmy, "intelligence is not formal education. The biggest idiots I know are tenured professors too educated to learn. Ignorance and stupidity. Different things. Remember?"

Jimmy smirked, and nodded, hating the warmth he felt in his face.

"So, don't disparage yourself. Educate yourself." Dr. Abbot pressed his finger to the table to indicate his syllables.

"Yes sir," Jimmy saluted, trying to tease, but finding himself meaning it.

"Intelligence is not how many trivia bullet points you can memorize and regurgitate for a test. You seem like a bright lad."

Jimmy sighed and crossed his arms, looking down at his janitorial jumpsuit. "Do you think so?"

"Well. I'm always open to being wrong. You might tell me how you tried to clean your toaster with a knife this morning.." Dr. Abbot shrugged comically, and Jimmy couldn't suppress a laugh. "It comes down to whether or not you think for yourself. Do you have thoughts? I'm still waiting to hear them!"

He wiped nothing from his mouth and sat up. "Alright, alright. I think... I understand about balance, what he means. You can't shut off an aspect of yourself and pretend compartmentalizing it and ignoring it means it doesn't exist. That bad energy. You can't destroy it. You can't destroy energy, right?"

The doctor also crossed his arms, grinning. "Are you asking me or telling me?"

"Heh. Well, right. I mean, you can't. It's just going to..." he floundered for the words, waving his hands around, "..reemerge as something else, like light to heat." He stopped, thinking of his own anxiety.

"Yes? But?"

"But I'm not sure.. I don't think I agree with his fatalism. Acceptance is good, but if balance is also good, then you have to balance acceptance as well. You have to suffer... about your suffering."

The doc raised an eyebrow. "What do you mean?"

"Um.." Jimmy put his hands in front of his mouth to pause and gather himself. Was he getting too personal? No, this was all still abstract. "You have to let what bothers you bother you. If you accept it too much, you lose your hunger. You lose your drive to make it better. It's like when you put your hand on the stove by accident and it hurts. It's not enough to acknowledge and accept that it hurts. Listening to it also means acknowledging its purpose, what it's there to tell you, which is that something is wrong. And you have to do something about it." He only heard the words after he said them. They both seemed to know silently in that same moment that he was having a realization, speaking from experience.

"What to do. That's the hard part," Dr. Abbot nodded.

"Yeah.."

The cherub grin returned. "I had trouble in school as well, you know."

Jimmy was incredulous. "You?"

Dr. Abbot made a cheesy grin. "Ah, yes, though probably not for the same reasons. The teacher would ask for a written history report and I would bring in artifacts of my father's and do a presentation instead or an essay on why the critical thinking questions were flawed for their presuppositions. Or, I'd be given a multiple choice math test, and I'd turn in a twelve page piece about Number Theory and why it was axiomatic and self referential fiction, and I shouldn't have to do the math tests."

Jimmy threw his hands up dramatically. "For that? Oooh, you rebellious demon."

They both laughed. "No, I was officially deemed a Disruptive Influence and a disrespectful little know it all."

"Were you? I can't see you thinking you know everything. You're so vocal on just the opposite!"

"No, but the teachers would keep saying that. Most of them hated me. They would visibly roll their eyes when I spoke. The other children hated me."

"But you're such a nice guy! I can't see you actually hurting anyone."

The doc grinned mischievously. "Ohhwwell.. I was almost arrested more than once. The worst was when I started a fire in the lab by accident. I could tell you some stories."

It was the first time that either of them had been in the break room for over an hour chatting with a co-worker. Jimmy would later look back on it as the night they became actual friends.


	9. Chapter 9

Staring at the peg board of notes, Jimmy clearly recognized a familiar form. Despite the spliced diagram and incomprehensible notes, it was a picture of a spider. "What's this you're working on, here?" He pointed, looking to Dr. Abbot, who turned from his Sudoku for a moment.

The good doctor glanced just enough to see what was being indicated and shook his head. "Oh, Jimmy. You know, there is much you don't have the clearance to hear. You're technically not even cleared to loiter in this area, and as much money as they pour into this place, I would expect that it's bugged."

"Because of the spiders?" Jimmy deadpanned, drum rolling the counter top.

"What? Oh! Hah, a pun, yes. I mean, no. Not because of the spiders.." He moved some papers out and about on his work area into a manila folder.

He shrugged and blew a raspberry. "Who am I going to tell, doc? Isn't this why I signed the non-disclosure?" Dr. Abbot said nothing. "I didn't mean to pry. I was just curious. You're always encouraging me to be curious." He didn't like this feeling of suddenly realizing their vast difference in status.

Dr. Abbot seemed uncharacteristically serious. "You could be a sleeper agent and not even know it." He had turned to look him dead in the eye when saying this, as if reading his reaction.

There was that distance. Jimmy had overstepped. He should have known better. "I'm sorry. I do realize that what you guys do here is important, and I'm just a janitor. Well. Bio-disposal agent person. Thanks for letting me back here.." He had to stop talking because he could feel the warmth in his face and the tightness in his throat, and he was hoping that it didn't show. They'd been getting along excellently all week.

Dr. Abbot put his hands up apologetically. "Thank you for your assistance, as always. I'm glad you're.." The doc sighed and rubbed at his nose beneath his glasses. "Alright. We are.. I am.. making a super spider. It's an attempt to combine all the desirable aspects in much the same way that hybridization of plants will strengthen the overall.."

"Jesus Christ! Why would you do that?" Jimmy shuddered at the thought. "Spiders are horrible enough."

Dr. Abbot grinned. "Horrible? I find them interesting. They are quite possibly the most adaptable species on the planet, able to survive and endure such a wide array of environments that they have flourished everywhere but Antarctica. There is probably no other species as indicative of a thriving ecosystem. Have you ever tried to stomp on a spider? Yet, sometimes they live. Think of how much more you weigh than a spider. Proportionately for their size, the potential for speed, reaction time, strength.."

Jimmy put his hands up in surrender. "You heart spiders. Got it, but why do it?"

Dr. Abbot patted the envelope. "It's a proof of concept. If we can prove our ability to do this, DARPA has promised an essentially unlimited funding budget. Imagine what it could mean for soldiers in the field if we could combine all desirable physical attributes into a single person. They haven't explicitly said as much, but.." The doc trailed off shaking his head.

"Wow," Jimmy sat down on a stool, letting that roll around in his head. "So, this is huge." He looked to Dr. Abbot, who was not smiling with the pride which Jimmy had expected. "You could be changing the world. How do you feel about that?"

"It's amazing. I never thought I'd be living in the era when mind controlled 3-D printed limbs were real, when flying robots protected the skies, where genetic breakthrough happen on a daily basis, and a part of me hates it," he nodded slowly, biting his lip.

Hate. Not a word he expected from Dr. Abbot. "Why? You can do anything you want after that."

His expression was steely. "Yes, and so can they. As a scientist, I deplore the notion that my work will be utilized not for the love of knowledge or discovery or betterment or to improve our quality of wonder but for the tactical advantage of those who exist to posture their power against other people."

Jimmy frowned. "I don't think it's that they would use it against people. Why say that? I'm sure it'll just be used by the armed forces and stuff for defensive purposes."

Dr. Abbot stared down at the table and closed his tablet to its home screen to give his full attention. "No. To seek to be more powerful than others lends itself to abusive behavior. The Ring of Power always corrupts its wearer. That's what power does. Take for example the Stanford Prison Experiment or the Milgram Experiment. Power over others always leads to abuse. For mere cooperation, equality is sufficient."

He drummed his fingers on the table. "I just meant.. You know, there are always going to be people who are not going to cooperate willingly and play nice, like terrorists. Other nations aren't going to stop trying to hurt us just because we stop trying to defend ourselves."

The doctor closed his eyes a moment as if in disdain of the words. "How do I even un-bundle a statement like that? To cooperate unwillingly is a contradiction in terms. That's called coercion, and those who would coerce others through the threat of force so as to cow them into fear are terrorists, yes? Are you suggesting that we terrorize others into not terrorizing us? That we bomb them until they're peaceful? That we weaponize until there is disarmament? That cycle is endless escalation, not a solution."

Jimmy shrugged. "It's the same as carrying a gun so you don't get shot. I just mean.."

Dr. Abbot wrung his hands in the air. "Is terrorism the answer to terrorism? What, then, does the word even mean? What a meaningless catch all!"

Jimmy stood back up. "I've never heard you raise your voice. Are you mad at me? I wasn't trying to piss you off, man."

The doctor sighed out a shaky breath and reached out to touch Jimmy's arm. "No, I'm not mad at you. Sit. Sit." Jimmy slowly took his seat back, grinning hesitantly. "I am angry at the idea. The enemy is not people. The enemy is a way of thinking, of turning off thinking, and that is my point. Those who wish to control others always resort to two things, almost universally. One, they want you to be scared, so that you feel it more urgent and needful to react than to think or assess the situation. Two, they want you to be angry, so that you are willing to dehumanize and demonize whoever it is they wish you to accept their own inhumanity against. Whether you are calling someone stupid, or evil, or terrorist, or the man you are calling a terrorist is calling you an infidel, it's all just a way to dehumanize the person you wish to harm so that you can distance yourself from the guilt you would otherwise have to feel if you empathized with them as just another human being. It's name calling. That's all it is. It's name calling intended to make you destroy like an animal instead of ask what caused the problem and how you can fix it. I am angry at any view that tells me it's more important to see strangers as my enemy than it is to be free to think for myself. I turn off my mind for no one!"

"We were.. talking about spiders.." Jimmy laughed, but this time the doc did not laugh with him. "You obviously have some strong opinions on it. I've never really gotten into politics, but I feel you. I just meant.. I don't think other people are going to stop wanting to harm you just because you want to be nicer. Psychopaths aren't going to say oh wow, you've shown me the light, let's hug it out. They're going to take advantage of your good intentions and see you as a sucker. We gotta arm up."

The doc frowned. "Nothing I've said has been about politics. Your dismissal is very telling. I don't take you to be a cynical coward, Jimmy. Why act like one?"

He stood up again, kicking his stool away in frustration and surprise. "Oh-ho! Who's name calling now? You think I'm a cynic. I think you're being naive."

Dr. Abbot sighed, and shook his head sadly. "Jimmy. You're not processing. You're reacting. Sit. Listen. We're just talking. If you don't like the way some things I'm saying feel, that might be something else to sit with. You think it's naive to say there must be a better way than endless escalation. I think it's naive to presume power will only be used with the best of intentions, but with great power comes the ability to evade responsibility."

Jimmy sneered. "I see why the teacher's said that about you now. You like to pretend this benevolence, but you really think you know better than others."

"Ask yourself why you feel the need to lash out. If I'm wrong, tell me how and I will listen." The calm of his voice was just pissing Jimmy off worse.

"You're allowed to get mad, but I'm not? That's what I'm talking about. You're always talking down to me, telling me stuff.." His throat was tightening up again. The room seemed to be pressing in on him. He wanted to put his hands out to press the walls back.

"What's really bothering you? Tell me why you're mad."

He threw his hands up. "Seriously? Because you're being an asshole to me." He paced back and forth. "I think I've finally made a friend, and you go asshole on me. This is what life does to you. As soon as something good.."

"What life does to you?" Dr. Abbot leaned against the counter. "Jimmy, speaking of psychopaths, do you know what almost every psychopath and aggressor has in common? They almost all have that same victim narrative. The entire world must be cold and cruel, because it was cruel to them, so that's how things work. And they're just giving theirs back. Finally getting even. In their darkest moments, they feel righteous indignation."

"So, now I'm a psychopath, too?" He glared chagrin. "Anything else?"

Dr. Abbot crossed his arms challenging as he had in the kitchen a week ago. "This is what they want you to feel. Whoever you think that enemy of the world is against you, this is what they want. For you to be angry. As John Lennon said, once they've got you violent, they know how to handle you. They can feed you any agenda at all, and you will dance on the strings of any song of fear or outrage they play you. Y2K. Anthrax. West Nile. SARS. Bird flu. Swine flu. All the flues! Weapons of Mass Destruction. Terrorists. Economic collapse. Oil spills. Foreigners. There will always be some new end of the world to keep you reacting instead of thinking. Whoever decides what you're responding to decides what you do with yourself so that you do not. You say this is what life does. Maybe you're right. But, what was the first question I asked you, Jimmy?"

He thought of why he never much cared for the mindless chatter of a television or the radio. Intuitively, he had always felt it was propaganda and that had annoyed him, the notion that everything on seemed to be trying to sell him something. A product. A world view. Someone else's agenda. More than that, though, he hated the mindlessness of the noise when he already had enough in his own head.

"I asked what YOU thought. I wanted to know that you think for yourself. You do. You showed me that. So, control yourself. Sit. Listen."

Jimmy shot him a look and smirked. "Control myself and do what you tell me?"

The doctor grinned back this time. "See? That's what I like about you. You won't be told. You're like me. You have to challenge notions. You can't help yourself. Just make sure that if you reject an idea it's because of your own, and not just because of what someone else told you or something you feel. I'm a scientist. I will reject your oversimplifications. I will challenge you back. I shoot straight with you precisely because I do appreciate you."

Jimmy leaned against the counter as well. "You have a funny way of showing that."

The doctor looked down almost meekly, speaking quietly again. "I know. I have a lot of funny ways." He looked back up into Jimmy's eyes with that intensity that was still unnerving. "Not to ring my own bell, but I have four doctorates and am still under fifty. I'm the top earning in my field in the United States. Even my opponents seem to agree that I am pioneering new ground. Do I seem to you like someone who wastes his time?"

"No.." He didn't know why, but the sketchy racing chatter in his own head had ceased again. He felt a stillness.

"The other thing most angry people have in common is, they feel disconnected. They feel unheard, unwanted. They see a world of aliens and they feel like one in the world. That's why dehumanizing works to make people enemies. I think humanity can be more than an arm's race. Because I don't think it's necessary to live in that isolation. I think we can let someone in that position know... that they're not alone."

This talk seemed to make him feel both more and less comfortable. "I feel you." He air punched at Dr. Abbot's arm.

The doc shook his head. "Don't do that. Don't distance yourself from it. Don't be a coward."

He felt embarrassed but he couldn't say why, but he made himself meet the doctor's gaze. "So. We were talking about spiders.."

The tension came off in mutual laughter. "Yes. I don't mean to brow beat you. Spiders." The doc pointed to the mystery machine. "Are you familiar with the Traveling Salesman Problem?"

Jimmy shrugged. "I figured that barely happened anymore. People mostly shop online these days."

"No," the doc laughed to himself, "never mind. Let me short hand it. The problem with the earlier transgene methods was the level of inaccuracy that made avoiding undesired side effects of modification that led to mitotic catastrophe, apoptosis, and unpredictable protein production that ultimately made the new organism less instead of more hearty.."

"Okay, question." Dr. Abbot had emphasized before that interjecting to ask a necessary question for clarity is not rude, and when it doesn't happen in the lab, it can actually lead to costly mistakes. "How really can you do what you said? Don't different spiders have different numbers of chromosomes and such?"

The doctor grinned, seeming pleased he'd thought of it. "You must abandon this notion that chromosomes are particular to species. All life is a molecule made of the same building block materials. You have almost certainly eaten tomato with fish genes in it, but to say they were fish genes is also erroneous. Guanine, Thymine, Cytosine, Adenine. Everything that has DNA is made of that. You, me, broccoli. They are primarily just long chain fatty acids. But! This new method doesn't deal merely with chromosomes. It dissolves those down in an enzyme bath to the core particle nucleosomes where the important modifications can happen between the linker sites to code recombinant variants to factor bind transcription changes."

"Whoa whoa. Too much jargon. Pretend you're the Beastie Boys, doc. Break it down."

Dr. Abbot laughed. "I get that reference!" He pointed, a bit too proudly. "Basically, the Traveling Salesman Problem points out the exponential difficulty of working with possible combinations of solutions that no single algorithm could reasonably calculate. If you have three destinations of varying distances, what's the shortest route to take to reach them all as soon as possible? One can brute-force smaller combinations easily enough, but what if there were fifty locations, or five hundred, or in the case of DNA, trillions and trillions of possible combinations? You could drive to all the places before figuring out the quickest route to them. What the machine essentially does is emulate mother nature. Whenever we are stuck on the engineering end, the tendency is to look to how nature has already solved the problem. We did that as best we could here."

Jimmy blinked. "What does that mean? How?"

"You know I can't entirely specify the machine's working, or the recipes for unbinding enzymes or binding proteins.."

"No, right, I just mean.."

Dr. Abbot put his hand up, needing silence to think a moment. "It's like this: We use a series of learning algorithms for anomaly detection. The combinant fragments are left free to try to bind in various combinations. The scans detect the point at which markers indicate the combination failed, and then retry combinations from that specific marker by forcing mitosis from that juncture for further transcription. This continues rapidly until the end result is a non-apoptotic cell, whose success is then measured against other successful combinations."

"So, it's like survival of the fittest."

The doc smirked. "Well, Darwinist evolution models are tautological, I find. Why is it fittest? Because it survived. Why did it survive? Because it's fittest. Nature has no idea what is fit or not fit. It just tries everything. Look at a tree. It doesn't grow up through only the most lighted path. It grows out, in every way that it can. It experiments and explores. It hedges its bets."

"I thought only god could make a tree, doc." Jimmy snickered.

Dr. Abbot smiled. "Yes, well. Last month I saw a god fly over this building. The possible is wide open, my friend. The possible is nearly anything, and I believe this method will find it. The end result will be a life-form that can transcript its variants through t-cell carriers regardless of chromosomal difference. But, Jimmy.."

"Yeah, doc?"

"We are eventually going to talk about that anger."


End file.
